The wide range of mountainous area, generally known as the Alps, is one of the symbols of South-Western Europe. Spreading from Eastern France to Austria they also cover Northern Italia and most of the Switzerland. Highest peak of the Alps is the world-famous Mont Blanc in the border of Italy and France. Although not the highest hilltop in Alps, Swiss peak named Matterhorn is a stunning monument of the Nature.

Matterhorn is stand-alone isolated peak having four extremely steep faces, all of them indicating compass points. Its summit is at 4478 m which compared to Himalayas seems not to be that high; the reality is that the isolation and extremely quickly changing weather makes it extremely hard to conquer. Matterhorn was the last great peak of the Alps to conquer, it is said that by the first successful ascent to it the Golden era of Alpinism was over. It was not technically so hard to climb it, but the fear of the mountain was great in first mountaineers.

First considerable attempts to reach the summit were in the middle of the 19^th century when lots of travelers, in the light of general success of alpinism in that time, were stunned by the sight of that peak and the idea of standing on top of it. On July 14, 1865 it was first conquered by the British artist Edward Whymper and his party. Whymper had previously tried to reach the top for seven times, but was unsuccessful. First ascent to the summit was successful, not to say easy, but the first descent ended up with a catastrophic accident when half of the adventurers fell to depths of the glaciers. From then on, Matterhorn has taken lives from around 500 climbers and is considered as one of the most risky tops.

While considering reaching the Matterhorn, it might be good idea to hire a car from a rental service. Well-recommended companies are Hertz, Alamo, National, Dollar, Thrifty, Payless, E-Z, Simply Wheelz, Enterprise, and Europcar.